


The Only Respectable Thing

by randi2204



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5371478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josiah's heard many confessions in his day, but this one cuts closer to home than he ever could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Respectable Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** They belong to MGM, Mirisch, and Trilogy, not to me.

The church door creaked open, drawing his attention away from his book.  _I never do remember to tend to that,_ Josiah thought, closing the book and laying it on his table.  He pushed open the door from his room into the church.  The hinges squealed loudly, and he fought back a sigh.  _I never remember to tend to that, either,_ he thought ruefully.  _So much for not startling anyone._

 

A woman knelt near the pulpit, cradling a lit candle in shaking hands.  No, Josiah realized, quickly moving forward, it wasn’t just her hands that were shaking, it was her whole body, wracked with sobs.  She hadn’t even heard the door groaning open.

 

He knelt next to her.  “Be careful,” he said, making his tone as soft as possible.  He reached to steady her hands.  “You don’t want to get burned.”

 

He was surprised when he saw Inez looking up at him, eyes rimmed with red, her face blotchy and streaked with tears.  “It does not matter,” she said.  “Nothing matters, _Padre, que Dios me perdona…_ ”

 

“God forgives everyone,” he intoned quietly, sitting beside her on the floor.  She had thrown a shawl over her head, as she did whenever she came to church.  “He willingly forgives every heart that seeks forgiveness.”  He guided her hands down, gently uncurling her fingers from around the candle so she wouldn’t be scalded by the hot wax.  But then he kept her hands in his, holding them lightly.  “A burden shared is a burden halved.”

 

Inez frowned at him, and he added, “Just mean you might feel better if you tell me what’s wrong.  Might even be able to help.”

 

“No,” she replied, shaking her head.  The shawl slipped to her shoulders.  “No one can help me now.” Her voice broke on the last word, and she pulled her hands away to cover her face.

 

“That’s possible,” Josiah said, shifting so that he sat next to her.  “But you never know until you ask.”

 

Inez let her hands fall away from her face slowly, as if she didn’t believe him but couldn’t bear to think that she was right.  He gave her an encouraging smile, but she turned away, dropped her gaze to her lap, where her fingers clenched in the material of her skirt.  For a moment, he thought she was going to stay silent after all, but then she took a deep breath.

 

“You remember the _vaqueros_ , the ones on their way to market who had to stop because they did not know why their cows were falling sick?”  She glanced up and Josiah nodded.  “One of the _vaqueros_ … he came to see me every day in the saloon.”  Her cheeks pinkened and she looked away again.  “José… he was like Buck, I think now, but… it was so good to hear my own language again that I did not stop to think _then_.  He was in the saloon each day, just talking to me, and it was nice to have such a handsome man giving me all his attention.”

 

“Inez,” Josiah said when she paused.   “Did you and José…” He stumbled to a stop when she covered her face again.  “I see.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she curled up against him, shoulders shaking as she fought to hold back her tears.  “And now you’re…”

 

_“Estoy embarazada,”_ Inez whispered when he trailed off, the words muffled by her hands.

 

His Spanish was a little rusty, but her whole being simply radiated despair.  She was with child.  “Oh, Inez.”  He tightened his arm.  “But I reckon that all you have to do is send a letter to José.  Just explain the situation to him, and I don’t doubt he’d be happy to marry you.”  _And if he isn’t_ , Josiah thought, with a bit more vindictiveness than the situation probably warranted, _then I’m sure he can be…_ persuaded.

 

“But how can I find him?” she demanded, eyes bright with tears.  “He never told me where he was from, his town – I only know his name!”

 

That was a complication he hadn’t expected.  “Well… maybe one of the others remembers the brand, or even the name of the _rancho_.  Vin probably will, anyway – he tends to notice things the rest of us don’t.  I’ll ask him about it later.”  Vin almost always returned to the church with him after supper, and they spent some of that time talking.

 

But she didn’t brighten at this – not that he had really expected her to; a woman bearing a child out of wedlock was considered by many to be a woman of loose morals… or worse.  And because she ran the saloon, because she was Mexican… it would be even worse than that.  _And finding José is more of a long shot than either of us would like to admit,_ he thought.   For even if Vin or one of the others remembered the brand or the _rancho_ , it was possible José would not be able to marry; the _vaqueros_ were often in debt to the men who owned the _ranchos_ from the moment they were born.

 

Inez fidgeted in the circle of his arm, and slowly, he released her, resting his hand on the floor behind them.  She shifted, her head bowed, and Josiah was startled to see that there were still tears in her eyes.  He opened his mouth, trying to find the right words to comfort her.

 

She spoke before he could.  “But to my shame, that is not all, _Padre,_ ” she whispered.   “After José and the other _vaqueros_ left, there were a few days when you and the others were gone, but Señor Vin had to stay here…”

 

Josiah nodded.  “I remember.  He wasn’t very happy when Chris told him he couldn’t come, but there was a chance that the judge who’d issued that warrant against him would be…” Then the implication of what Inez had said struck him, left him cold.  “Inez,” he said hesitantly, hoping that he was wrong, that he’d misheard, “do you mean to say…”

 

Flushing hotly, she nodded.  “Señor Vin was most unhappy that Señor Chris had made him stay behind.  The first night you were all gone, he kept to himself at the table in the corner, so I did not know how much he had drunk until it came time to close.  I did not think he was steady enough to go back to his own room, and there was no one I trusted to carry him.  We got up the stairs, and I brought him to my room, because it was closer.  I thought that I would perhaps rest in Señor Ezra’s room once I had settled Señor Vin to sleep the liquor away.

 

“But… Señor Vin took hold of my arm after I got him to sit on my bed, and he asked me not to leave, because he did not want to be alone.  That… it touched me, because I did not want to be alone either.”  Her cheeks were bright red, and it seemed she could not bring herself to look at him. “I was lonely, _Padre_.  José had left but a few days before, and I missed him.  Not… not just his touch, but his laugh, his words.  So when Señor Vin asked me to stay…”

 

“Comfort,” Josiah said, and though he sounded somewhat wooden to his own ears, Inez nodded gratefully.

 

“ _Sí,_ that’s it.  I thought that… that it would be nice to feel the presence of another in my bed, even if it was not the one I wished for.”  She folded her hands together in her lap and stared down at them.  “And at first, I thought that was all it would be – just to know I was not alone, because surely he would sleep soon.  But when I turned down the lantern, he reached out to me again, touching me as… as my José had, and…”

 

Josiah found his tongue was clove to the roof of his mouth and he couldn’t make it move.  Vin? Vin had done that, had forgotten in the depths of alcohol what the two of them had shared, the feelings that had stirred between them?

 

But Vin had fought those feelings, he recalled without wanting to.  Vin had fought, had not wanted to be drawn to Josiah in that way.  But when he’d given in, it had been all the way; that was just the way Vin did things.

 

_Or so I believed, anyway_ , Josiah thought.  _I can’t believe that Vin would… would set that all aside so easily…_

 

But why would Inez lie?

 

Inez interrupted the thoughts circling around and around in his head.  “I think that when Señor Chris decided that Señor Vin must stay behind, it made him think that he was somehow… less.”

 

Josiah swallowed.  That, too, was something that Vin had resisted; he had not wanted to lay beneath him.  “We never thought the less of him,” he said quietly.  “It was much better not to chance him being recognized and hanged for a crime he hadn’t committed.”

 

He’d spoken those very words to Vin, when Vin had come to him seething about Chris’s decision.  _I wonder now if that was a mistake._

 

“Of course!  But I don’t think that he believed it, since you had all left.  I was not meant to hear, but I couldn’t help it, because he was… very close.  He said something about… being a man.”

 

“Being… a man?”  Josiah swallowed.  His throat was tight, and he wondered if this was what drowning was like.  He felt that everything Inez said was a silent accusation that Vin couldn’t speak, resentment that could only find an outlet through action.

 

“ _Sí_ ,” she replied, nodding.  “Not being thought less of a man – less _than_ a man, perhaps.  It was not easy to understand.”

 

“No,” he said, and he had to force himself to speak.  “No, I don’t imagine it was.”  _Not easy for me to understand, either._

 

How could this have happened?  _Why_ had this happened?  For the first time in a long time – since he’d left Hannah in the convent – he had been… content.  And now… now Inez dropped this on him, when Vin had said no word about it since the rest of them had returned to town. _Why now?_

 

“Inez… something must have happened to have you in such a state.” When she did nothing but stare at him, he let out a breath.  There was no delicate way out of this at all.  “Did you just now… discover…?”

 

“No, I… I just told Señor Vin that I am with child,” she said, her voice falling to a whisper.  “He…”

 

He didn’t think that his heart could sink any lower, but it did.  “He didn’t believe you.”

 

Inez shook her head wildly, her eyes welling up again.  “No, he did not.  Señora Travis, she said that I could trust Buck, that I could trust you all…”

 

“You can, Inez.” Josiah leaned forward, as if mere presence would convince her.  “I don’t know why Vin didn’t believe you, but he must have a reason.”

 

“He woke in my room,” she bit out, and swiped her hands over her cheeks, smearing dampness.  “He lay in my bed with me all night, and woke as I dressed, and now he says that… that he could not have done what he did… that it is _impossible_ that the child could be his.”

 

There was nothing he could say to that, nothing he wanted to say.  It wasn’t right for a man to deny a woman who claimed she carried his child, but… And that’s where things got all tangled, that _but_.  Because it was Vin, who was sometimes taciturn, but rarely less than honest.

 

_Where does that leave us?_ Josiah wondered.  _Where does that leave_ Inez?

 

He didn’t want to think about Vin’s part in this mess, because it meant he had to think about what might come next, but he couldn’t stop himself.  _How could everything have changed in such a short time?_

 

He sensed that his attempt at being a comfort had become… less comforting, but he couldn’t shift his mind from the picture that Inez had painted, of Vin so lost in anger at… at _everything_ that he would seek out a woman’s touch instead.  He had seen Vin in the throes of passion, knew what he looked like at that moment when nothing mattered but falling over the edge.  But now that memory was cold, tainted, as he imagined Vin lying with Inez instead.

 

Had it been real? Or… only on his part?

 

Perhaps he had been misleading himself, thinking that his feelings ran deeper than they actually did.  _For how could I love someone who could so easily be untrue?_

 

It had been a long time since his heart had filled with such emotion, and it was easy to mistake _wanting_ for something more.

 

Perhaps all they had was just… desire; not for each other, but just for the touch of another’s body, knowing someone else was there to ease the loneliness that haunted them… _comfort,_ just as Inez had sought.

 

It was a hard thing to admit, even to himself.

 

_Which means… there’s nothing holding us together,_ he thought, a sadness he couldn’t deny filling his chest.  _There never was_ anything _that could hold us together._

 

The idea that had been growing in the back of his mind finally blossomed, and he let out a soft breath.  It wasn’t the best of plans, true, but it would solve Inez’s problem – at least outwardly – and make his own a bit easier to bear.

 

_Lord, I pray you give me strength,_ he thought, _and help me find the right words to say…_

 

He knew he would need them later, to explain this to Vin.

 

“The situation is not so dire as you think, Inez,” he said quietly.  “I think there’s an answer to your problem.”

 

She sniffled and wiped away her tears. “There is, _sí_ , but he is many miles away and I don’t know how to find him.  I told you…”

 

“I don’t mean José,” Josiah interrupted, and she pulled back to look at him, dark eyes wide.  “We both know that finding him is going to be next to impossible.  No, Inez, I meant… me.”

 

Her mouth fell open and she stared.  “ _Padre_ , you cannot mean what I think you mean.”

 

“I’m not a priest,” he said, with more heat than he intended, and huffed a little when she recoiled.  “I haven’t been for a long while,” he went on, forcing himself to at least seem calm.  “And while I have never really longed for the comforts of a home and family… I know I could do worse than to look for them with you.”

 

Inez gave him a tremulous smile.  “I have never heard such a romantic proposal.”

 

Josiah bristled a little at that – _here I am, trying to do the honorable thing,_ he thought, disgruntled – but slowly realized that she was right, and sighed.  “I’m not going to lie to you, Inez,” he said.  “I don’t love you, and I know you don’t love me… and if we find your José before this becomes necessary, we both know that’ll be for the best.  But if not… you’ll need a husband.  Seeing as Vin isn’t willing, I am.  It’s possible that love could come later. Even if it doesn’t, though… I reckon that friendship might be enough.”

 

Slowly, Inez nodded, her dark eyes bright with tears once more.  “You are right.”  She swallowed, smiled at him bravely as she took his hand.  “It is very generous of you to offer this… and I am grateful for it.  If… if it becomes necessary.”  She squeezed his rough hand between her own.  _“Déjalo en las manos de Dios.”_

 

_In the hands of God,_ he translated.  Somehow, he managed to smile back at her, and it must have seemed real enough because she pressed his hand again before rising.  As she put the candle on the altar rail, he half-hoped that this was just a dream, that he’d wake up in his room, book on his chest, a crick in his neck from sleeping wrong.

 

But he didn’t wake.  This was the world he lived in, the real world.  He levered himself to his feet as Inez righted her shawl and left the church, head held high.  He trailed after her to the door, watched her make her way down the dusty street.  The sun was still bright overhead; for some reason, he’d thought that it would have started to grow dark.

 

Movement caught his eye, a horse and rider leaving the livery, and Josiah recognized Vin immediately.  It was too much to hope that Vin’s sharp eyes missed him, but he drew back into the church and hoped regardless.  _Now is not the time to… ask him about this_ , he thought, and sank heavily onto a pew.  He stared at the candle that Inez had lit, burning brightly on the altar rail; all the others had burnt out.

 

Seemed like an omen to him.  Regardless of whether marrying Inez became necessary or not… there was nothing that could save him and Vin now.

 

He wondered what he would do if the baby Inez bore had blue eyes.

 

***

October 22, 2013

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill Farad's [Mag7daybook](http://http://mag7daybook.dreamwidth.org/) prompt: [Josiah, OW, the only respectable thing to do is marry Inez and claim her unborn child, especially since it could be the child of his lover . . . ](http://mag7daybook.dreamwidth.org/259557.html?thread=2357477#cmt2357477)


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